Marketplaces For Digital Products

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Marketplaces For Digital Products

Marketplaces make it easy and effective to sell digital products by giving you a platform with lots of customers already. These platforms handle things like taking payments, delivering products, and marketing, so you can focus on creating great digital products. Here’s a simple guide to some popular marketplaces for selling digital products.

Why Use Marketplaces?

🌐 Built-In Traffic

  • Description: Marketplaces have lots of visitors looking for products.
  • Benefit: You get a big audience without having to do a lot of marketing.

🛠️ Ease of Use

  • Description: These platforms are easy to use with tools for listing and managing products.
  • Benefit: Makes selling simple so you can focus on making your products.

💳 Payment Processing

  • Description: Marketplaces handle taking payments and keeping them secure.
  • Benefit: Ensures safe transactions and less work for you.

👍 Trust and Credibility

  • Description: Marketplaces are trusted by buyers.
  • Benefit: Makes your products more likely to sell because buyers trust the platform.

Marketplaces give you a ready-to-use solution where you just need to set up your profile, upload products, and add some information about yourself, and you are ready to sell.

Popular Marketplaces for Selling Digital Products

Here are some marketplaces I recommend and use. At first, they might seem the same, but they offer different things and different audiences. Make sure your product is a good fit for the marketplace and that it reaches your target audience.

Gumroad

Overview:

  • Specialty: Digital products such as ebooks, courses, music, and software.
  • Ideal For: Independent creators and small businesses.

Key Features:

  • Simple Setup: Easy to create and manage product listings.
  • Payment Options: Supports multiple payment methods, including credit cards and PayPal.
  • Subscription and Membership: Sell subscription-based products and memberships.
  • Analytics: Detailed sales and customer analytics.

Pricing:

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(No monthly fees or charges, Gumroad takes 10% from every sale. If you don’t make sales, you don’t pay - which is fair.)

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Why choose Gumroad?

Gumroad is great for anyone who makes and sells products. Writers, musicians, filmmakers, software developers, digital creators, educators, and more can sell on Gumroad to a worldwide audience.

Simple setup, powerful sales

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Managing customers and sales

Gumroad lets you interact with your audience through emails, drip content, growing followers, and sales data. It's also easy to issue refunds, update product content, create discount codes, and add affiliates.

Get Paid

You can get paid by PayPal, Stripe, or to your bank account. Find more info here:

What I like about Gumroad is that you can basically create your own website on it:

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This guide is about creating your “where to sell” place. Gumroad is another example of an easy solution where you don’t need to create your own website from scratch. You can use Gumroad to create your offer on an already established marketplace and build your website on it.
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You can use Gumroad along with a social media all-in-one tool. For example, create a Zaap.bio link in your bio and then send all customers to your Gumroad product pages with checkout.

You can set this up in hours instead of spending weeks creating a custom website.

Etsy

Overview:

  • Specialty: Handmade goods, vintage items, and digital products.
  • Ideal For: Creators of digital art, printables, templates, and planners.

Key Features:

  • Customizable Storefront: Personalize your shop to reflect your brand.
  • SEO Tools: Optimize your listings to improve search visibility.
  • Payment Processing: Integrated payment solutions for secure transactions.
  • Community: Access to a large community of buyers and sellers.

Pricing:

  • Set-Up Fee: Opening an Etsy shop might cost a one-time fee of $15 USD.
  • Listing Fees: Each item you list costs $0.20 USD.
  • Transaction Fees: When you sell something, Etsy takes 6.5% of the item's price plus shipping and gift wrapping costs.
  • Etsy Plus: For $10 USD a month, you can get extra tools to help grow your brand.

(There are more fees if you want to use Etsy’s ad system.)

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You can also create your own store on Etsy. Each product gets its own page, so it can work like your own website. Etsy handles everything from storing products to delivering them through email after someone buys.

It's important to look closely at what products are already on Etsy. See if your product fits in or if it's better for a site like Gumroad.

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I think Etsy is mostly for beginners with simple, lower-quality products. When you look for digital products, you often see the same things over and over. It feels very crowded, and nothing really stands out. The mockups and designs aren’t very high quality either.

But this can be a good thing because it might be easier to sell to beginners who are just getting started.

So, think about who you want to sell to and choose the best place for your products based on that.

Creative Market

Overview:

  • Specialty: Design assets like graphics, fonts, themes, and templates.
  • Ideal For: Designers and creatives selling digital design products.

Key Features:

  • Marketplace Visibility: Access to a large community of designers and buyers.
  • Product Bundles: Sell products in bundles to boost sales.
  • Payment Processing: Secure payment options for buyers.
  • Marketing Tools: Promotional tools to increase visibility.

Pricing:

  • Creative Market takes a 50% commission on every sale. While this is a big chunk, the millions of active users on the platform can make it worth the cost.

(I found this article that can answer your general questions): ⬇️⬇️⬇️

This marketplace is more specific to design assets and various templates. It’s definitely worth a try if your product is suitable for the target audience of Creative Market. They take care of everything from storage, delivery, product pages, creating a store, and checkout.

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If your product fits this marketplace, there are many more like Adobe Stock, Design Cuts, Fontspring, Shutterstock, Envato Market, and others. Since setting up your business on these marketplaces doesn't take long, you can create multiple stores and test which performs the best.

Envato Market (ThemeForest)

Overview:

  • Specialty: Digital assets including website themes, templates, graphics, and audio.
  • Ideal For: Web developers, designers, and content creators.

Key Features:

  • Extensive Library: Large selection of digital assets.
  • Quality Review: Products are reviewed for quality before listing.
  • Affiliate Program: Earn commissions by promoting other products.
  • Licensing Options: Flexible licensing to suit different customer needs.

Pricing:

  • Envato charges a fee based on your total sales and whether you sell exclusively on Envato. Non-exclusive authors pay a 55% fee, while exclusive authors pay between 12.5% and 37.5%, with the fee decreasing as sales increase. When someone buys an item, they pay the List Price, which includes your Item Price and an Envato Buyer Fee. Your earnings are the Item Price minus the Author Fee. For more details, check the fee table for exclusive authors.
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(Find more information below): ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Consider using these marketplaces if your digital product fits their target audience.

Other Platforms For Freelancers

If you are offering a service as your digital product, you can use freelance platforms like Fiverr or Upwork:

Difference Between Marketplaces and Custom Solution

Let’s discuss why it’s good to think about creating your own brand, website, and everything around it.

Take a look at this service on Fiverr: Personal Signature

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All these marketplaces are saturated with the same products or services. It’s just a price competition.

Now look at the same service, but created with a unique brand, custom website, product stacking, and different pricing strategies:

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Which service would you trust more?

Which service looks more trustworthy and higher quality?

You created something more trustworthy and higher quality. People would trust you more if you have something like that compared to just being someone on a marketplace. You have better customer experience, customer support, and much more space for scaling.

✅ Unique Brand

✅ Unique Offers

✅ Custom Pricing

✅ Control Over Customer Experience

✅ Building Loyal Customers (Potential For Upselling)

✅ More Marketing Opportunities

✅ Better Scaling

✅ Better Profit Margins (Less Fees and Commissions)

Of course, it’s more difficult. It takes more time and perhaps money in the beginning. But in the long run, it’s definitely worth it.

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If you want to stay on marketplaces, do it well and differentiate yourself from others. It might be “easy” for you to win that game. As I said, all graphics and mockups look the same; if you create something outstanding, you can win.

If you decide to use these marketplaces as your main "where to sell" platform, combine them with social media all-in-one tools for greater effectiveness. For example, use Gumroad as your website to create product pages with checkout and all the information your customers need to know. Then, create a custom link in your bio using Zaap. This link can feature a landing page with all your products and portfolio, and a button that redirects to your Gumroad pages where customers can make a purchase. After they buy, Gumroad will automatically send the products to their email.

Example of Listing Products on Marketplaces

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We use the same story as in the previous lesson about Mike, who creates digital products about investment.

Mike's Use Case

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In this example, Mike decided to focus on creating new digital products. These include ebooks and ready-to-use templates. He won't worry about operational tasks. He enjoys developing content and conducting one-on-one consultation calls. Mike chose to list his products on digital product marketplaces. This way, he can reach a ready-made audience and simplify the process.

After some research, he found that Gumroad has similar products to what he offers, including a category for digital products about "Investing." So, there’s no need to wait.

Listing your products on Gumroad is a really simple process. They take care of everything, so you just need to create your account with your store and list your products.

They will guide you through every step on their helpdesk website:

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Here is a quick step-by-step guide on how to start selling on Gumroad:

📝 Sign Up for Gumroad:

  • Visit Gumroad.
  • Click on "Start Selling."
  • Enter your email address and create a password.

👤 Set Up Your Profile:

  • Fill in your name or brand name.
  • Add a profile picture and a short bio.
  • Link your social media accounts if desired.

➕ Create a New Product:

  • Click on "Products" in the dashboard.
  • Click on "Add a Product."

📝 Enter Product Details:

  • Title: Add a descriptive title.
  • Description: Write what your product includes.
  • Price: Set your price or choose "Pay What You Want."
  • Cover Image: Upload a high-quality image.

📁 Upload Your Product Files:

  • Click on "Upload your files."
  • Select the file(s) you want to sell (PDFs, templates, videos, etc.).

💵 Set Up Payment Options:

  • Go to "Payout Settings" in your dashboard.
  • Link your PayPal account or enter your bank details for payouts.

🛒 Customize Your Checkout Page:

  • Add a custom thank-you note or redirect URL if desired.
  • Set up custom fields if you need to collect additional information from buyers.

🚀 Publish Your Product:

  • Click on "Publish" to make your product live.
  • Copy the product link provided.

📣 Share and Promote:

  • Explore Gumroad's built-in marketing features.
  • Track sales and customer engagement with Gumroad's analytics.
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Mike is more than happy because, within one platform, he could set up his online store, list different products separately, and create a big bundle with better pricing. He can set up upsells in the built-in Gumroad checkout and engage his customers via email marketing automations and workflows—all within the Gumroad platform. They take care of product delivery, analytics, email marketing, creating product pages, and his website. Here is one example of his customer journey:

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To sum up Mike’s Gumroad journey

  • Created a store on the marketplace
  • Created a homepage
  • Created product pages
  • Created a lead magnet
  • Set up a payment system
  • Set up automated delivery after purchase
  • Uses built-in email marketing for engagement
  • Uses built-in analytics to track sales and engagement

Besides Gumroad, Mike decided to test another marketplace—Etsy. He followed the same steps to create his store and list all his products. He plans to test it for a few months and see the results. He also uses Zaap.bio, which is listed on his social media channels. It drives traffic to his Gumroad product pages and makes his social media more effective.